Skirts and Showtunes
by Roby Carr
Summary: Santana Lopez is a junior, a cheerleader, and a Glee club member. She's still thinks of Puck as "her man." Cut to Mollie Adams. She's a sophomore and brand-new to McKinley. She's a classically trained pianist. She's head-over-heels in-love with Santana.
1. Had Me At Hello

**Skirts and Showtunes** | _part one: Had Me From Hello  
_Santana/femaleOC (nothing explicit) with a slice of Sam/Quinn | T | 2,036 words  
Posted 01/08/2010 | Un-beta'ed, contact me if you'd like to beta.

Monday, 2:57 PM

Santana was hunched over in her usual chair in the back of the choir room, scribbling in her notebook. The year before, Figgins had, unfortunately, taken it quite seriously when Mr. Shue announced to him that most of the Cheerios should have flunked their classes. He was now monitoring the grades of all athletes stringently and Santana couldn't afford to get kicked off the squad, especially now that Quinn was head bitch in charge again.

Despite her best efforts to redeems her miserable grades, Santana was still struggling with English Lit, particularly with Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park.' Reading the book was fine. Fanny was a freakin' wimp, but Santana read it anyway. How could they expect her to write a five-paragraph essay about the novel too?

The paper had actually been due earlier in the day, but she had pouted and begged for a one-day extension. Naturally, Ms. White had granted it, but Santana now wished she had just taken the hit to her GPA rather than writing the stupid essay.

Mike and Finn are on either side of her, talking over her down-turned head and bitching about that missed call during that weekend's Buckeyes game. She's doing a fairly good job at ignoring them and getting a good start on her paper's introduction when Rachel sweeps into the room, calling for attention.

Rachel is the bane of Santana's existence. It's like she simply cannot be ignored. Dressed in the sort of sweater Santana wouldn't even wear at an ugly sweater party, Rachel is leading a second girl by the hand and heading straight for Mr. Shue.

They're all fairly used to it by now. Every week or so, Rachel finds some downtrodden nerd and convinces them that auditioning for Glee Club is the perfect way to help their popularity. Sometimes, the newbie will stay for a couple practices, but most tend to disappear back into anonymity after one practice. Once in a while, Santana wonders where Rachel finds them all, but usually she tries to avoid any thought of Rachel whatsoever.

As usual, Santana has never even seen this girl before. She's a couple inches taller than Rachel, but younger-looking and far less fierce. It's still early in the year, so Santana assumes she's another anonymous freshmen. Honestly, it's kind of funny watching the trepidation flash through her wide eyes. For a moment, Santana even thinks the little thing might turn heel and run.

Rachel lets go of the girl's hand and starts talking to Mr. Shue, making grand gestures as if what she's saying is of any importance. The girl's lonely hand flexes for a second and her green gaze darts out over the classroom, inspecting the Glee Club.

By the time she reaches Santana, the fear is gone and she seems more curious. Santana stares straight back, bitchface in place just for good measure. The girl raises an eyebrow for a moment and a smile dances across her lips as if she's making fun of the cheerleader. Santana narrows her eyes back and the girl continues onto Finn, but Santana is left feeling like she's going to need to smack a bitch.

After shooing Rachel off to a chair, Mr. Shue steps away from the piano and settles a hand on the girl's shoulder. She looks startled for a moment, but Mr. Shue grins easily. He says something to her and she laughs back.

Santana turns her eyes back down to her notebook and tries to remember what she was writing about. God damn Rachel, messing up her chances at good grades. Mike jostles her with his elbow as he gestures, trying to demonstrate something to Tina and Santana smacks him on the shoulder in response. He rolls his eyes, used to her being fairly bitchy, but it helps to make Santana feel a little better.

"Guys, let's get down to business," Mr. Shue announces, stepping forward and Santana turns her head back to her notebook, scribbing down another sentence. "Rachel's really stepped up as our captain and invited a new student to audition for us today. This is Mollie Adams. Let's all give her our attention, alright?"

Ignoring Mollie Adams, Santana reaches into her backpack for her copy of the novel, hoping to add in a quote from the book. Apparently Mr. Shue notices because he adds, "Santana, this is Glee time. Your homework needs to be done at home. Put it away." Santana frowns up at him and he adds, "Now."

She does put her notebook back into her bag, but she makes a face as she does it and then glances back up. "Happy now?" she asks dryly and Mr. Shue nods.

"Very. Thank you, Santana." He nods at the new girl and takes a seat in the chair next to Artie, smiling.

The new girl gives a small wave and an apprehensive smile, "Hey. I'm Mollie. I'm new here."

"We know that. Can you sing?" asks Quinn and Santana grins. Sure, sometimes she hates her fellow Cheerio, but there's nothing like hearing her say exactly what Santana is thinking. There's a reason they're generally friends.

"Be nice," Sam says and taps his girlfriend on the hand.

Mollie walks over to the piano at the fronts of the classroom, sitting down on the bench and striking the ridiculous posture both Rachel and Kurt use when they play. Santana's been told by Kurt that it's "proper position" but she thinks they both look like douchebags when they do it. She can play 'Chopsticks' and she doesn't have to sit like a moron.

"I'm going to perform a song by The Sounds," the new girl announces, "I'm not sure if you guys know it, but it's called 'Night After Night.'" She reaches into her backpack and pulls out sheet music, setting it in place on the piano.

Santana still thinks there's a chance the girl will run. She's almost certain Mollie's going to ditch when she stops for a moment and pulls her hands away from the keys. Instead, the girl looks over at Mr. Shue and smiles, "Can I go?"

Mr. Shue nods and says, "Go ahead."

Mollie launches into the introduction and even Santana is a little impressed. The song is slow and rhythmic, but Mollie is obviously a talented piano player and familiar with the instrument.

It all seemed perfect  
But there are moments  
When I feel nothing at all.  
Same as always  
Now it's repeating  
Itself all over again

Mollie reaches up to brush away stray hair that's fallen in her eyes and Santana smiles, caught in the spell. Her voice is a little thin sometimes and she breathes at the wrong time, but she manages to stay on pitch.

Night after night you say you move on  
Tomorrow, tomorrow  
Now, what's holding you back?  
I don't know, I don't know  
Night after night you say you move on  
Tomorrow, tomorrow  
Now, what's holding you back?  
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know

The redhead's voice is fraught with emotion, sounding distraught and haggard. Santana finds herself inspecting the girl's face for more signs, but her eyes are shut and her expression is carefully schooled into blankness.

There's a break in the lyrics and Mollie's eyes open. By chance, they land on Santana and the cheerleader catches her gaze, a cool, approving smile gracing her lips. When she smiles, she catches the moment Mollie misses a note and the redhead's eyes dash back to the keys under her fingers as she continues the song.

Don't feel sorry  
'Cause there's no reason  
For us to fight any more  
Tears are coming  
And years are going  
I hope we'll learn something

Santana looks away from the girl at the piano for a moment to look around the room. She's not surprised to see that her fellow Glee members are paying close attention. There's a knowing grin on Rachel's face and, even though she usually hates Berry's little charity cases, Santana thinks that they ought to thank her for finding Mollie.

Night after night you say you move on  
Tomorrow, tomorrow  
Now, what's holding you back?  
I don't know, I don't know  
Night after night you say you move on  
Tomorrow, tomorrow  
Now, what's holding you back?  
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know

She ends by repeating the chorus again and the choir room is silent for a moment before Mr. Shue claps his hands together and stands up.

"That was a great job, Mollie. Go ahead and take a seat," Mr. Shue says and the girl goes trotting off to the seat beside Rachel, looking delighted.

Mr. Shue continues aloud, "Guys, I feel like recently you've been doing a lot of great performances, but I'm worried because most of them have been current pop numbers. I want you guys to get in touch with the roots of showtunes. This week, I want you listen to some music from legendary Broadway shows and pick a song that really speaks to you."

"Mr. Shue, I really don't want to sit around and listen to showtunes," Finn protests and Puck adds, "Can't we just do another week of Journey?"

"As much as I'd like that, I want to see you expanding your horizons," Mr. Shue explains.

Puck grunts out something that sounds like, "Gay." He and Sam chuckle and trade quick high-fives.

Mr. Shue levels a frown at them. "Guys, I'm not changing my mind on this one. Come next week, I expect showstopping Broadway numbers from each of you. We're going to spend the rest of the day going over some of Broadway's biggest hit songs so you'll all know what I expect from you. Puck, hit the lights."

Puck grumbles, but he stands up and heads for the light switch, his arms flexing under his tee shirt. Santana grins to herself, watching.

Mr. Shue must've had one of the Audio-Visual geeks hook up his laptop, because he flips a switch and the projector casts the image of a YouTube video up on the screen. "Guys, the single longest-running Broadway show is Phantom of the Opera," he starts and Santana quickly tunes him out in favor of her own thoughts.

For a few minutes, she watches as Puck and Sam whisper to each other in the row in front of her. Quinn, on Sam's other side, is paying attention to the lesson, but she turns to the boys for a moment when Puck hisses her name and the trio laugh quietly about something. Mr. Shue shoots them a dirty look and Quinn smiles at both Puck and her boyfriend before turning back to the lesson.

Santana is struck by an odd feeling and, though at one point she wouldn't have admitted to it, now she knows it's jealousy. In the last two years, between Quinn and the baby, Rachel and Finn's break-up, and juvy, Santana had always assumed that Puck was just waiting for the right time to come back to her. Now Quinn and Sam are approaching their first anniversary and Finn's almost forgotten that Rachel ever cheated, but Puck hasn't made any moves.

She's hot shit. Santana know that. She deserves the very best and, yeah, it kind of pisses her off that Puck hasn't really been following up on the openings she's been giving him. Now that they're juniors, she had assumed they would just pair off neatly, have lots of sex, and maybe get married when they finished high school.

Puck was a unreliable douche, but he was _HER _unreliable douche.

As his playlist of videos starts up, Mr. Shue takes Mollie aside and they sit at the edge of the classroom filling out registration papers. Satisfied that Mr. Shue is appropriately distracted, Santana fishes her notebook and novel out of her bag, opening to the page of her essay.

_Finally, a change to finish this shit..._

But Santana hears Mr. Shue's disappointed voice from the edge of the classroom and, gossip queen that she is, can't help to listen. There's something about a skipped class and Mollie is protesting. Santana turns her head a little to see Mr. Shue shaking his head and he fishes a pink pad of paper out of his pocket. She recognizes the stack of detention slips from personal experience and a little smirk dances across her face.

Mollie looks a little miserable when Mr. Shue sends her back to the seat next to Rachel. Santana watches as Rachel whispers to her for a second, then takes her hand with a reassuring smile.

Glancing down at her unfinished essay, she frowns and then looks up at the pair of girls in the front row. As much as she'd rather let the new girl wallow in detention alone, she really ought to step in. She can admit that they could really use this girl in Glee Club and, not even Santana, can doom someone to friendship with Rachel Berry.

Tearing the page with the half-written essay out of her notebook, she crumples it up and drops it on the floor. Santana should have known she was due to take one for the team.

As of tomorrow afternoon, Santana would have an even lower grade and a detention. New girl better have been fucking grateful.


	2. A Bit of Sun and Sleep

**Skirts and Showtunes** | _part two: A Bit of Sun and Sleep  
_Santana/femaleOC (nothing explicit) with mentions of others | T | 1,344 words  
Posted 01/15/2010 | Un-beta'ed, contact me if you'd like to beta.

a/n; Part one has been edited as of this posting as well. Thank you to leyton426 and Logan for their kind reviews. This chapter goes out to the both of you.

Tuesday, 2:42 PM

Santana walks out of English the next day with a detention slip in hand. She's also got Ms. White's words ringing in her ears: "I still expect that essay on my desk by the beginning of class on Friday, Miss Lopez. No more extensions."

At the very least, she's glad her grade didn't take a dive. As much as she complains about Ms. White, Santana is fairly certain that she's the coolest teacher besides Miss Holliday. Four days is more time than she was hoping for.

Detention starts at three o' clock sharp and Santana is aware that she needs to be there a little early for everything to go as planned. Ms. White had droned on for a fair amount of time about responsibilities and then she'd tried to get Santana to go over the essay outline with her. It took a fair amount of crocodile tears to end the lecturing and an excuse about a previous commitment to volunteer before Ms. White finally let her go.

It wasn't a total lie. Santana's effort to get the new girl away from Rachel Berry was a community service.

She gets detained when she passes by Artie's locker. Brittany is there, helping him carry his books. Sure, Santana's on a mission, but Britt is still her best friend and she got interrupted when they were texting earlier. Santana is fairly impressed that Artie is such a good sport about it all, rolling a couple lockers down to chat with Mike and Tina while his girlfriend is busy.

It takes a good fifteen minutes to catch up on the juicy gossip from earlier that day and Santana ends up sprinting across the school to make it to the detention room before three o' clock. The new girl rounds the opposite corner at the same time Santana rounds hers; she barely makes it to the door in time to grab Mollie's wrist and pull her aside.

"Hold up, New Girl," Santana snaps. For a second, she thanks God that she's a Cheerio. Anyone else would have been flushed and breathless after that dash, but she's fairly sure she looks as fantastic as she did that morning.

Mollie looks fairly surprised and cocks her head to the side. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure I know you."

Santana rolls her eyes. "I'm your guardian angel, alright?" she responds. Jared, the short kid Santana copies in third period, is heading for the door of the detention room with a pink slip of paper in his head. Sanatana's fairly sure this is her one shot, so she levels her eyes at Mollie and says, "Just give me your detention slip and don't move."

Mollie still seems apprehensive, but she hands her slip to Santana and the cheerleader briefly notes that this girl is far to trusting.

Santana manages to step in Jared's way just before he enters the classroom. "Listen dwarf, I need something done and you're going to do it." The kid is just a freshman and Santana's fairly sure he just pissed his pants, but she can't really ease off now. "Just walk on in there and turn these slips in with yours, alright?"

Jared's eyes are wide and he sputters, "What if I get caught?"

"If you get caught, I'll punch you in the balls. Don't get caught." She pauses and glances over her shoulder. Mollie is watching and, by the look on her face, she seems to have heard everything. Santana sighs and tries to flash a calming smile at the kid, "Just do it."

She backs off and Jared wanders into the classroom. Santana's fairly sure he'll be fine. She and Britt have been pawning their slips off on other detention-goers for years.

Spinning around, Santana's pleased that Mollie is still waiting. Mollie cocks an eyebrow, but Santana shrugs it off and says, "We can go now."

Mollie keeps up as Santana leads the way down William McKinley High School's winding hallways. For a minute or so, Mollie is silent, looking fairly confused, but eventually she asks over the din, "So... You're my guardian angel?"

"Socially at the very least," Santana responds and turns another corner, "It's your lucky day, New Girl."

Santana chuckles as they make their way out a side door of the school. It leads out to the football field and Santana climbs up onto the bleachers. They're empty today, expect for the first couple of football players setting their stuff down on the lowest-most bench. One of them must see the pair, because Santana hears a loud whistle and then a couple catcalls join in.

This time last year, she and Britt would have been playing it up for the attention, flipping their hair and maybe dancing a little for the guys. Now that Britt and Artie are nearing eight months though, Britt has been fairly monogamous. Santana's just about used to it now; hell, she might even respect the commitment. Heaven knows she couldn't do it.

"You're from Glee Club, right?" Mollie voices. Santana pauses halfway up the bleachers to glance back at her. Mollie smiles wide and Santana can't help smiling back. She looks a little like Brittany when she smiles. "That's why you know me. I didn't recognize you at first."

"Color me impressed," Santana replied dryly. Mollie's face falls at the sarcasm and Santana tries to seem a little warmer when she speaks again, "I'm Santana. We're going all the way up."

Mollie keeps climbing up the bleachers and Santana follows this time until they reach the top. The cheerleader settles her bag on the bench next to her and drops her sweater on top of it. The sun is shining down on the metal bleachers making them warm as she lays down on her belly and stretches like a cat.

"What are you doing?" Molly asks and Santana sighs.

"Lay down. We're tanning," she replies and pillows her head on her forearms.

Santana hears the heavy metallic 'thump!' of a backpack hitting the bleacher and she glances over to see Mollie taking a seat one bench down. The girl stretches her legs out in front of her and Santana closes her eyes, shutting out the bright sunshine.

Listening to the distant buzzing of students and the soft rustling of leaves, Santana finds herself drifting aimlessly through thought, comfortable and warm on the bench. She muses over Finn and Puck for a while, almost certain she can hear their rich tenor shouts from far down the bleachers. She thinks about sex with them, how they were different and how they were alike. She thinks about sex with Brittany and thinks about the one time she and Quinn drunkenly kissed in front of the boys.

In passing, she thinks of the time she hit on Sam that past summer and was turned down. The memory still feels fresh: the blush on his face as he quickly excused himself, the embarrassment when she saw him again that afternoon. Two weeks later, she had apologized, a first for her. Sam had put an arm around her shoulders, given her a quick friendly hug and walked her to her next class. She's still amazed that he didn't tell Finn and Puck.

Santana thinks about Mollie, beside her, and thinks of how she barely knows the girl. She thinks about how a year earlier, she wouldn't have minded sitting up here alone if Brittany had gotten lost on the way. She thinks about Quinn and Sam and Puck the day before, thinks about how she misses the feeling of belonging to something. She thinks about Finn and Rachel, about Tina and Mike, about Artie and Brittany. She thinks she might be lonely.

At some point, Santana drifts off in the warm sunlight and falls into a dreamless slumber.


End file.
